6pm binge!!!

Question
Dear Cari,

Hello! I am a 23 year old female and recently I decided I had started to get a bit out of shape and   I overhauled my diet and started doing more regular exercise. This has been pretty successful as I've lost two stone steadily over a three month period and am feeling much fitter again.

I really enjoy healthy foods and find it pretty easy to not eat junk but there's one major downfall in my diet...

I work long 12 hour shifts in a care home for people with advanced dementia. I love my job but it is tiring and stressful and by the time the evening meal trolley arrives for the residents I find that I am starving and craving stodgy, greasy foods.
All of the staff pick at whats left over after everyone has had their dinner and I find myself in there snacking on procesed meats, rich mayonaise sandwiches....junk! Our residents are on a fortified diet so there is never a healty option!

I never pick at breakfast, lunch or at the 3pm cakes but at 6pm I seem to loose contol!

A typical day of food....minus the 6pm junk fest would be:

Breakfast:
- fruit, 0% greek youghurt, honey
 or
- porridge with fruit and honey
and a cup of herbal tea

Lunch
- chicken and salad wrap, fruit
- homemade spicy lentil soup, wholemeal seeded pitta bread, fruit
cup of herbal tea

3pm Snack
- Pressed fruit bar made from dates and nuts (no artifical syrups etc, just fruit and nuts)
Or
- Handful of nuts
Cup of herbal tea

Dinner
- Chicken/Lean Steak stir fry with rice noodles and veg
- Baked sweet potato, beans and salad

On the days when I'm not at work  stick to this so easily but at work by 6pm I am ravenous!
I would be so grateful for any advice you could give me regarding changes to or additions to my diet that might help me avoid this trap.

Also, sorry for such a long e-mail!
Hollie  

Answer
Hi Hollie
Well done on already losing 2 stones.  Here are some of the ideas I have...firstly, snacking together may almost be a case of now that everyone else is snacking it sort of gives your permission to as well, almost like it's a bit of a snacking club and that if you don't join in you'll feel left out and the others won't feel comfortable.  It sounds almost like this may be some kind of a social event.  In other words, we've fed our patients, put them to bed and now it's our time to take a snack break.  If that's the case, is there a way you can plan to do something else when everyone is tucking in?  Or could you possibly make yourself a cuppa tea and take something really small and just eat it really slowly.

Alternatively, you also say that you crave stodgy, greasy foods... and very often the kinds of foods we crave are symbolic of something in our lives.  So I'm wondering if there are parts of your life where you feel bogged down or parts of your life that feel as if they need greasing? You can read more about this at:  http://www.ditch-diets-live-light.com/emotional-eaters.html

I've often been intrigued when seeing patients in therapy at how often they crave a particular type of food which is related to something in their past - you can read some of their stories at: http://www.ditch-diets-live-light.com/food-craving.html

Kind regards
Cari

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